Travel agent gets 80 complaints

However, after hearing about a fraud investigation surrounding the local travel agency, Texas said of her trip: “It doesn’t look good.”

Texas, who works at Auburn Hills-based Chrysler LLC, said several of her co-workers also have booked with Penny’s for a similar Caribbean vacation. Several of them have taken trips without hiccups, but several also “have been given the run-around on their paid vacation packages.”

According to Waterford Police Chief Dan McCaw, more than 80 complaints about the local business have come to the Waterford Police Department’s offices. Officials launched a local and federal investigation Tuesday.

The investigation has people talking.

Lynn Matell, who booked a 14-person package trip to Honolulu, Hawaii through Penny’s, said her trouble started the night before the flight. She heard about the travel agency through friends who worked within the Waterford School District.

“She was very ingrained in Waterford schools. She hosted an ‘Oahu Nights’ event at Marinelli’s in Troy, and 80 percent of the people there who worked for the (school) district. About two dozen of my friends had made the trip without incident.”

Matell said she checked Better Business Bureau record and the business’ standing with the Waterford Chamber of Commerce. As of Aug. 3, 2011, Penny’s Personal Travel was in good standing with both entities.

The mother of four took her trip on the week of Thanksgiving in 2012 and had made the arrangements 16 months prior.

“We didn’t find out until the night before — around 9 p.m. — that we had to get to the airport at 6 a.m. the next day,” said Matell, a Waterford resident. “That was my four kids, their spouses, four of my grandchildren, myself and my husband.”

After the stress of rushing everyone to get ready on such short notice, boarding the plane and departing, Matell thought she was “good to go,” she said. “But I wasn’t.”

Upon arrival to the island, Matell and her family discovered that the transportation — and Waikiki Hyatt hotel reservation — they had paid the business for was non-existent.

It cost Matell several thousand dollars, charged to her credit card, to reconcile the expenses. And she even negotiated a better hotel rate than Penny’s Personal Travel, she said.

“It’s been a nightmare since we’ve gotten back,” she said Wednesday. “It was certainly not the trip of a lifetime we thought it’d be.”

Matell booked an extra vacation for her and her husband — also through the business — but immediately canceled it. She said she was one of the first to file a police report.

On March 20, when police served a search warrant at the travel agency, located at 5451 Victoria Blvd., near Cass Elizabeth and Cooley Lake roads, they seized records and other items. Detectives are reviewing the records and working with local, state and federal authorities to investigate the numerous complaints.

“What’s strange is that we’ve got this travel company that’s collecting money and promising trips,” said Waterford Police Chief McCaw, “but sometimes they go through and sometimes they don’t. It’s hit or miss.”

A search for Penny’s Personal Travel on the Better Business Bureau website lists a woman named Penny Kane as the agency’s owner. She has not returned several calls or emails from The Oakland Press.

The BBB website also shows that Penny’s Personal Travel is not accredited, with an added “F” rating.

Factors that allegedly lowered the rating, according to the BBB website, were 14 complaints filed since September 2012, and the administration’s failure to respond to at least 10 of them.

The site elaborates that one complaint dealt with billing issues, three involved delivery issues and the remaining 10 had to do with problems with the product or service.

According to Waterford officials, Penny Kane has been in business in Waterford for nearly 20 years, but the complaints began in the past two.

While some have been filing police reports, others took to small claims court to file their grievances.

A Shelby Township woman and her fiancé — who prefer to remain anonymous for this article — have filed in Waterford Township’s 51st District Court.

The couple had booked their honeymoon trip, scheduled for this summer after their wedding, to Jamaica with Kane’s company at the suggestion of some friends.

The woman said her dealings with the business were strange from the start — the couple was told to pay for the trip by putting the $3,300 that it cost into a Huntington Bank account.

“It felt shady at the time,” said the woman, “and afterwards, I still felt weird about it.”

That was October 2012.Since that time, the couple said they had several email exchanges with Kane, but she largely avoided them. An excerpt from their original complaint read: “Multiple unprofessional emails and unanswered questions from Penny Kane arose about the travel arrangements of the trip, causing (the anonymous couple) to no longer feel comfortable or confident in doing business with Penny.”

The anonymous woman said each time she tried to get in touch with Kane, the travel agent had a different excuse.

“She claimed that she was taking care of her sick father, that her mother was sick ... that she had whooping cough,” said the Shelby woman. “I’ve never been through anything like this in my life.

“I just think about being so excited the day after our wedding, and for our reservations not to be there ... It would’ve been terrible. My fiancé and I try not to talk about it because I would just cry.”

The couple has since booked their dream honeymoon to Jamaica using AAA, said the woman.

Their small claims case is pending and is due to be heard in court again April 10.

Another claim, filed Jan. 11 in the Waterford court, lists Southfield woman Cheryl Beal’s complaint against Penny’s Personal Travel, detailing that $3,460 she had spent on a trip that was never taken has not yet been refunded. Beal was not available Wednesday for comment.